Julie Newmar

There’s a brilliant musical from 1954 starring Jane Powell and Howard Keel (also featuring Julie Newmar—perhaps better known as Catwoman!) called Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. If you haven’t seen it, I recommend it for so many reasons. Your grandma has a copy of it, and I know she’d love to watch it with any or all of you!

The story is about Adam Pontipee (played by Keel) and his six backwoods brothers finding wives. Adam has little trouble finding and convincing Milly (Powell) to marry him. Now Milly, being a good older sister, tries to help the younger brothers learn to court and woo women! At a barn raising, the fellas fall in love with six of the town’s girls, but also end up in a fist fight with the town folk—the girls’ brothers and fathers and uncles!

The boys go home to and pine for their girls, realizing that the men in town will never let them marry the girls now. But Adam tells them the story of how the Romans captured and carried away the Sabine women! So imagine it—six men in a barn, throwing their jackets on, swinging and clapping and dancing around, Keel singing in that deep voice of his—and what have they decided? They have decided to do like the Romans and go carry off the town’s girls!

Every—and I mean every-single-solitary-time—I watch the scene where they sing “Sabine Women” and decide to kidnap the girls, I hear myself say, “I can’t believe they’re going to kidnap the girls!” And every-single-solitary-time, Adam takes his brothers into town and they kidnap the girls.

Unbelievable!

I’ve never felt as silly in my life as I do when I watch that scene! Maybe it wouldn’t be so incredible if they weren’t singing and dancing…I’m not sure.